


Soul-Seeking Up The Pacific Coast

by TimeTurnedFragile



Category: Pretty Little Liars
Genre: Angst and Humor, F/F, Future Fic, Moving On, Past Relationship(s), Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-16
Packaged: 2018-04-04 03:45:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4124491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimeTurnedFragile/pseuds/TimeTurnedFragile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day Toby gets married, Spencer buys a brand new car and runs it into a telephone pole on the way to the reception.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> the show may have abandoned the emily/toby friendship, but it seems i cannot. features discussions of past relationships for both emily and spencer. would love to hear what you think!

The day Toby gets married, Spencer buys a brand new car and runs it into a telephone pole on the way to the reception.

"Honestly," says Emily when she shows up, flush-faced, her clothes not quite as neatly pressed as they were at the ceremony. She eyes the wreck of Spencer's car, the sharp points of silver and red crumpled in on each other, and clicks her tongue impatiently, hand propped on her hip. She looks over at Spencer, frowning. "You are okay, right?"

Spencer, who by now is sitting on the curb, picking at the grass, blinks up at her. "I'm fine," she says. It's pretty much the truth; she's a little shaken up, a little bruised, but that's not really anything new.

"Good," Emily says in the short, indistinct way that means she's actually really glad Spencer's alive. She shifts from one foot to the other, cocks her hip, sighs exasperatedly. "Jesus, Spencer, you could've picked a better day."

"It was an accident," Spencer snaps. She's not entirely sure how it happened; she remembers leaving the church and hitting the pole, but not really much in between. "Why didn't you just make Aria come if you’re so bothered?" She gets to her feet and brushes the dirt off her ass. Aria, at least, would've been a little bit supportive about the whole situation.

“Aria was having fun. It's one of her and Ezra’s first nights out alone since the baby, did you really want me to drag her away from that to clean up after you?" Emily says impatiently, the same tone she's always reserved for Spencer when she does stupid things. Spencer kind of hates that tone, but she ignores it, since she deserves it this time.

"Sorry," Spencer mumbles, wandering back over to inspect the damage again. She hadn't actually liked the car that much, but it still sucked. She'd bought it on a whim, that morning, one of those impulse buys because you feel like you need something new in your life. It wasn't really her style, though. She frowns down at the bent hood, picking a piece of flaking paint off an abrupt bend of metal. It's sharper than she expects; it pokes into her skin and gets stuck under her fingernail. "Fuck, ow," she says, and digs it out with her thumb.

Emily is watching her, lips pressed together in a thin line, hand on hip in classic Emily bitch-pose. "You called your insurance, right? A towtruck?"

"Yeah, right before I called you." Spencer kicks sullenly at a tire, scuffing dirt all across the toe of her good shoes.

"Good," says Emily, not like the one before, just in relief that Spencer's managed to do one thing competently today. She pauses, draws a breath, and hovers between the inhale and the exhale for a moment before asking, "So, did you want me to take you home, or back to the reception, or what?" She asks this very carefully; Spencer can practically feel her stepping around the words like broken glass. Pity from Emily Fields, Spencer thinks. She's not sure how she feels about that.

"Home's fine," she decides eventually with an awkward sort of shrug. "They're not gonna miss me at the party."

Emily's eyes narrow minutely, for just a second, but then she just shrugs, too. "I'll call Hanna,” she says. "So people know you're alive."

It's another hour before Spencer finishes dealing with the insurance company and the towtruck guy; she finally sinks down into the passenger seat of Emily's car, the energy seeping from her as she exhales, sagging back into the leather upholstery. Emily climbs in the other side, pulls the door shut behind her, and fires up the engine without preamble. Some random pop song blares to life on the radio; Emily reaches over and turns it down to more of a background-noise level.

"Sorry for keeping you from the reception," Spencer says.

Emily shrugs, not looking over at her, eyes intent on the road. "I gave my speech, and I didn't have a date or anything, so, like." She shrugs again. "Toby'll understand."

"Yeah." Spencer looks down at her hands. Cracks her knuckles a few times.

"That's so gross," Emily says. Spencer cracks them again, and Emily rolls her eyes.

It's dark outside when they finally pull up to Spencer's place: it's a cute little house on the outskirts of Los Angeles, and she had chosen it over an apartment because, she said, what was the point in having an awesome place if you didn't have a backyard to plant stuff in? As Emily's car slows to a stop, though, the house just looks too big. Spencer sighs.

Emily looks over at her for the first time since the drive started. "Are you sure you're okay, Spencer? I mean, you should probably go to a doctor--"

"I'm fine, Em," Spencer interrupts, pulling a grin with some effort. "I've still got my pretty face, and that's what really matters, right?"

"Mmm, right," Emily says. She studies Spencer for a moment, but apparently decides she's well enough, because she waves a dismissive hand. "Go rest. I'm gonna go see if I can catch Toby to say bye before the honeymoon--call me later so I know you're not dead from internal bleeding or something, okay?"

Spencer nods. Emily waits until she's inside the house to drive off.

* * *

The next morning, Spencer wakes up stiff and sore and finds thirteen new messages on her phone: mostly just people making sure she's alive, Aria asking if she needs anything, Hanna snarkily offering her driving lessons. A voicemail from Toby.

Spencer deletes them all and calls Emily, who picks up on the second ring.

"It's seven in the morning, Spencer," she grumbles, muffled; Spencer can picture her with her face half-sunk into the pillow, sleep-mussed hair in her eyes.

"Oh," says Spencer, glancing over at the clock. "Sorry, I didn't check." She fell asleep really early, she figures. She didn't even eat dinner after Emily dropped her off.

"S'fine," Emily mumbles. "You're still alive? Not bleeding or concussed or anything?  News of the crash has apparently already made it’s way back to Rosewood. You're the town's new hot gossip.”

"Fabulous." Spencer says. Because nothing brightens your spirits like having to continuously assure people she wasn't drunk or suicidal. She considers briefly just closing all the curtains, curling back into bed, and hiding from the world for a year or so.

Emily makes a sleepy sort of noise from the other end of the line, but her voice clears up a little, like she's rolled onto her back and isn't talking into the pillow anymore. "I told your mom to tell people it was a mechanical thing; the car's pretty much gone but you're fine, you went home to rest," she says, succinct, business-like.

"Thank you." Spencer lets out a breath. "Uh-- you can go back to sleep now, if you want. Sorry for waking you up."

"S'fine," Emily says around a muffled yawn. "G'night."

* * *

Her house really is too big, Spencer decides over a bowl of Froot Loops an hour later, showered and dressed with her wet hair an unbrushed mess. But it's really less of having too much space and and more of having too few people, Spencer thinks, frowning in concentration as she tries to fit all the green loops into one spoonful. It's too quiet. Spencer's used to laughing and yelling friends and music turned up loud and Toby mumbling in his sleep. Spencer's not good with quiet.

One of the green loops escapes her spoon. She picks it out with her fingers, pops it in her mouth, and goes after the purple ones now. Then the red ones, then the yellow ones, and then she just gives up and shovels the rest indiscriminately into her mouth. Then she gets on Facebook to see how many new rumors she can find.

As soon as the clock hits noon, she calls Emily again.

Emily answers the phone with, "Did you know you were spotted in five different bars before the accident? Spencer, you better not have been making clones. One of you is more than enough for this world."

"I also snorted cocaine off a stripper named Chardonnay's stomach," Spencer replies cheerfully. “It says so on the internet, so it must be true.”

"Classy," Emily deadpans.

Spencer makes an agreeable noise, scrolling aimlessly through the page in front of her. It's all bullshit, but that's nothing new. She lives on the other side of the country, but Rosewood will never change. Funny how you can get used to things, she thinks. Used to people flinging around the worst stories people will believe. Used to people who will say they love you even if it’s not true. Used to no one actually caring what the truth is as long as they've got something to talk about.

"--for not showing up," Emily is saying.

"Wait, what?" says Spencer.

Emily sighs. "Are you sure you're not concussed? I said I managed to catch Toby before he left--he says you're a douche for not showing up. At the reception. And he means that lovingly, of course."

"Of course he does." Spencer closes her browser window. She eyes the screen for another moment, then just turns the whole monitor off. "I kind of want to buy another car."

"You just did that yesterday," Emily says, sounding resigned. "You crashed it, remember?"

"Yeah, that's why I need another one. I didn't actually like that one anyway." Spencer stands and stretches, cradles her phone between ear and shoulder so she can stretch her arms up as far as they'll go.

"You-- okay, whatever. Go buy a car, then?"

"Come with me?" Spencer asks, the question out of her mouth before she even thinks about it, but yeah, she thinks she'd really like someone to come with her. Buying a car is probably not a normal impulse for someone who's just been in an accident. Maybe she's going a little bit crazy. It might be good to have someone around.

Emily says, "Make Aria go with you." She sounds annoyed.

"But Emily, it's Aria and Ezra’s first day in after their first night out alone since the baby, do you really want me to drag her away from that?" Really, she's already got Emily on the phone, and convincing her is easier than making a whole new call. "C'mon," she says. "It can be, like, a super-awesome gorgeous bachelorettes type thing."

“Fuck you," Emily says, and she actually sounds inexplicably offended.

Spencer frowns. "Hey--"

"Look--" Emily says, then sighs. "Just don't crash whatever you get, okay?"

"Yeah," Spencer says. "I won't."

She doesn't get a new car until Friday, and then it's not even new: an old 1994 Toyota Camry, deep green, plain interior, and the radio doesn't work, but Spencer figures that's just part of its charm--something about the idea of hurtling down highways with no music except the wind whipping the thoughts from her head is too appealing to pass up. The inside of the car smells like dust and cheap cleaning chemicals, but the upholstery is unstained, indistinctive. Spencer doesn't love it, really, but she feels like she could search every lot and not find a car she wants to buy more right now.

So, she forks over a few thousand and spends the rest of the day driving aimlessly around the city and the suburbs, humming to herself, nothing in particular, just noise. She gets a smoothie and drives some more. She thinks about calling Emily or Hanna or someone, but she decides to go home instead. 

* * *

Aria is still in Los Angeles for the weekend, and is apparently completely and utterly amused by the car. 

"No, Spencer, it totally suits you," she says with a ridiculous grin. "It's very, um. Symmetrical."

Spencer folds her arms over her chest. "I like it, okay? It's got sentimental value."

"To who?" Aria has her cell phone out now, and is snapping pictures of the car from artsy angles.

"Someone, I'm sure," Spencer huffs. "Who are you sending those to?"

"Oh, everyone. Has Emily seen this thing yet?"

Emily has not, yet, but when Aria is done being a photographer Spencer almost immediately receives a text message. It says, _Hahahahahaha_.

"Emily thinks it's classy," Spencer informs Aria haughtily. "Edgily vintage."

"Is edgily a word? Emily thinks the car is hilarious," Aria says.

Spencer rolls her eyes and shrugs. The Camry might not really be her usual flair, but it runs and it's in one piece and she hasn't crashed it yet, which are really the important things, she thinks. 

"Emily has not been behind the wheel of this beauty," she says. "She will understand once that happens."

"Baby, you can drive my car," Aria sings.

"Yes, I'm gonna be a star," Spencer agrees.

"Beep beep'm beep beep yeah," they croon in unison.

* * *

Aria is right, though: Emily thinks the car is hilarious. Spencer can tell by the way she looks at it, hand on hip, mouth twitching up at the corner. Emily is occasionally very subtle about finding things hilarious, but Spencer likes to think she's figured out most of Emily's expressions by now. The crinkle of her eyes is affectionate, the set of her jaw a little exasperated, the purse of her lips resigned and bemused for reasons Spencer can never quite figure out.

Right now, though, the point of concern is not Spencer's new used car or the subtleties of Emily's mouth, but rather the price of the new pair of limited edition sneakers Emily is eyeing critically through a storefront window.

"They're not that different from the ones they released last year. I don't see where the hell they get off asking that much for them," Emily is saying, thoroughly annoyed, so much so that she has both hands on her hips, now.

"It's not like you can't afford them," Spencer says, leaning forward so her breath fogs up the glass when she exhales. They are here because Spencer had insisted that Emily give the Camry a chance, at least, or because Spencer didn't have anything to do, or maybe because Spencer could not, as hard as she tried, seem to stretch herself out enough to fill up her house. Getting out is good, even if it is shoe-shopping for Emily.

"Well, yes," Emily says impatiently, "but it's the principle of the thing. I don't need to spend three hundred dollars on a pair of shoes I practically already own, do I?"

"Well, no, but you want them anyway," Spencer says.

Emily sighs. "I really do."

Half an hour later, Emily's got a plastic bag looped over her wrist and the box inside keeps bumping Spencer's knee as they walk. Emily's old shoes are in the box. The new ones are on her feet. She's got a strangely endearing satisfied look about her, less bitchy than she's been most of the afternoon, and it makes Spencer feel a little better about life. 

Over a late lunch, Spencer picks at her chicken and Emily asks questions around pieces of sushi. 

"So, how are you?" Emily asks. She's frowning a little bit, as if she's expecting some nervous confirmation of internet rumors, or maybe like she feels obligated to ask.

"I'm fine," Spencer answers, stabbing a piece of chicken with the end of her chopstick.

"Actually fine, or, like, emo-fine?" As in, going slowly insane and carving dark sexual metaphors into hotel room walls. Spencer's pretty sure that isn't applicable to her present state of mind. She's a little restless, with the time off from work, maybe a little lonely with so much time to herself, but there's really no reason for Emily to be scrutinizing her over her dragon roll like she is.

"Actually fine, Em,” Spencer sighs.

"Yeah," Emily says. "Okay, that's good."

* * *

On the way home, Emily's cell phone rings.

"Hey, superstud," Emily answers it, grinning. Spencer looks over briefly, but mostly makes sure to keep her eyes focused on the road. She can hear Toby on the other end of the phone, not well enough to make out words, but the familiar rise and fall of his voice, pauses and punctuations, inflections and intonations.

Emily laughs quietly at whatever Toby is telling her. Spencer glances over again, but doesn't ask about it. The sun is setting over on the passenger's side and Emily looks soft and golden in the fading light. It's an incarnation of Emily that Spencer loves, because it reminds her that, despite differences and disagreements, Emily has never left her in any important ways.

Spencer tries to tune out the majority of the conversation, but she can't help but catch the words filtering past her ears. "No, no, I'm just chilling in Spencer's sweet new ride," Emily says, not a trace of irony in her voice. "You should come home early just to see this baby. No, not because I miss you." A pause, then another laugh. "Yes, I'm gonna be a star," she sing-songs into the phone.

"Beep beep'm beep beep yeah," Spencer sings quietly to herself.

"Why are you even talking to me?" Emily asks eventually, amused, mouth quirked into a grin. "Don't you have, like, husbandly duties or something? Yeah-- okay, whatever. Seriously, Toby, I'm glad you're happy. No, stop calling me. Forever. Yes, I breathe for you, too. Go away."

She hangs up, blinks around in the near-nighttime. "Spencer, uh, where are we going?"

They're on the highway, going steady at about eighty miles an hour. Spencer shrugs. "Somewhere not home," she says. She'll decide when she gets there.

* * *

The thing is, the breakup was mutual and friendly. There were no tears, no screaming fights, no weeks or months of treading on glass while hearts healed and habits reformed. It didn't affect their friendship, not in any notable ways, and after the way where at some point they had slid so naturally into five years of soft touches and secret moments and long nights that are seared into Spencer's brain like a match in the dark, somehow, they had come full circle back to where they started, and it just wasn't a romance anymore.

"You know forcing things never works," Toby had said, quietly, into the crook of Spencer's bare shoulder, his long fingers twining with Spencer's own. "We can't run this into the ground. We can't ruin it. It wouldn't be fair."

"No," Spencer agreed into Toby's hair, blinking slowly, trying to decide how to feel.

"There's such a big difference," Toby murmured, "between loving and being in love."

And that was it, really. Everything wound down soft and easy, and Spencer stopped thinking about it, because there was nothing left to think about.

Now, Spencer thinks, it's a lucky thing she's got Emily in the passenger seat with her three-hundred-dollar shoes propped up on the dashboard, because that means she's got one really good reason not to run the car off the road. Again.

"Can't we at least turn the radio on?" Emily asks around a yawn. She gave up an hour ago asking where they were going, and is now just sort of resigned, reclining in her seat and texting Hanna with approximate locations, just in case she needs rescuing at some point. Spencer is glad she's not bitching, or demanding they turn around. She thinks that maybe, on some level, Emily might understand.

"Radio doesn't work," Spencer says, shrugging apologetically.

"Ah," says Emily. She punches out another text on her phone. Spencer is fairly sure it says something along the lines of, _Spencer is a douchebag, can i please kill her_. Spencer is also fairly sure Hanna won't agree to that, though. Hanna’s a good friend.

Emily rolls down her window, and the wind whips into the car, around Spencer's ears, through her hair and between her fingers with the scent of the desert and the night. Emily leans back and closes her eyes. Spencer keeps driving.

* * *

Three o'clock in the morning finds them in southern California, somewhere between Los Angeles and San Diego, rolling quietly up to the dark, deserted beaches of the Pacific coast. Emily is asleep in the passenger seat, has been for several hours now; she shifts and murmurs when the car slows to a stop, but doesn't wake up. Spencer reaches over to touch Emily's cheek briefly, whispering, "I'll be right back."

Spencer leaves her shoes in the car: it's summer, and she doesn't want to get sand in them. She leaves her door open and pads quietly across the sand, the sand soft and warm under her bare feet. It's a clear night; the moon is large and bright overhead and Spencer can see the ocean stretching out into nothingness, the white crests of waves, the scattered reflections of starlight trailing across the water. It's breathtakingly massive, and Spencer shivers despite the warmth of the night.

The breeze from the water is crisp and salty. Spencer stops just short of where the waves are lapping quietly up the beach and watches them ripple up the sand, inches from her toes, then slide silently back into the ocean, fitting right back into it like they were never gone in the first place.

"What the hell are you doing here, Spencer?" she murmurs, wrapping her arms around herself and looking away from the water, up at the sky. Three in the morning, hours from home, with her best friend asleep in her car up the beach. There's something beautifully and disturbingly existential about the whole thing. If Spencer was a writer like Aria, she would take it and spin it into an anthem about loss and heartbreak. Instead, though, all she can do is let the feeling squeeze her heart until it's fit to burst.

A wave breaks the pattern, lapping over Spencer's feet; she jumps and yelps, water spattering over the sand. The sound seems unnaturally loud in the darkness. Spencer looks around instinctively to make sure no one heard, even though she knows Emily's the only one nearby.

The water is cold, but Spencer's feet are wet now anyway. She rolls her jeans up to her knees and wades in a few feet until the waves are tickling her at mid-calf, toes curling into wet sand, the chill of the water a sharp contrast to the ocean air. Spencer shivers again, then stands very still, looking out seaward. The sky and the ocean blend together in the darkness, and she can't tell where the horizon is.

She stares for a long time, trying not to think, and wondering if that's the problem.

By the time Emily wakes up, Spencer's feet are numb from the water. Emily moves quietly, always has, so Spencer doesn't even notice her until she's standing at the water's edge, sneakers hanging from one hand.

"Spencer!" she says sharply so Spencer twists around to see her, blinking back into focus, the realization that there other people in the world jerking her mind back down to earth. 

"What the hell?" Emily says. She looks angry--some kind of angry, anyway, not the kind of angry Spencer's used to from Emily. "What the hell, Spencer, seriously, what are you doing, get the fuck out of the water."

Spencer complies wordlessly, wading back over to her, the air cold against her wet skin and sand sticking to her feet. Emily gives her a once-over, sighs, and reaches for Spencer's hand.

"I was just thinking," Spencer mumbles as Emily leads her back to the car, her warm fingers wrapped tight around Spencer's cold ones.

Emily gives her an exasperated look. "You don't think," she says flatly. "You need to sleep--lay down in the back for a few hours and then we'll go find some breakfast."

Spencer does that, curling awkwardly onto the back seat with her sandy feet hanging off the edge. Emily climbs back into the passenger seat, reclining it back as far as it'll go and settling on her side.

"Emily," Spencer says. Whispers, more like.

"Shut up," Emily mumbles, but she stretches a hand back to find Spencer's again, fitting their fingers together and squeezing. Spencer falls asleep like that, clutching Emily's hand like it's keeping her from drowning.

* * *

Spencer wakes up to harsh sunlight and a painful crick in her back. She yawns and tries to stretch, but winds up jamming her knuckles into the door instead. "Ow, fuck," she says.

"Good morning, sunshine," Emily says from the front. Spencer twists around to blink up at her, adjusting to the brightness; Emily's still curled in the passenger seat, awake, texting away. She's still barefoot, her shoes set up on the dashboard, and her hair is mussed, but otherwise she looks relatively unfazed.

"Ugh," says Spencer, sitting up slowly and cracking her back. "What time is it?"

"Like nine-ish." Emily pockets her phone, adjusting her seat back into an upright position. "Are you done being existential yet, because I'm starving."

"Mmmgh," Spencer says, intelligible and articulate. But she pushes the far door open with her feet and crawls out, groaning and stretching, going up on tiptoe and reaching up as high as she can. Grabbing for the clouds. They seem a little more in-reach than usual. In the bright morning, the beach is nothing like the place she drove to: there are already people wandering up and down the sand, surfers tiny and bright-colored out on the water. The water is blue and sparkling, and it's still massive, but not impossibly-- all-encompassing. Universal.

They manage to find themselves an IHOP and settle into a booth in the back, Emily informing Spencer snippily that she better be buying. Spencer shrugs and orders inordinate amounts of coffee, and Emily seems at least a little bit mollified once she's got a steaming mug in front of her. As Emily adds cream and sugar and sips at her coffee, Spencer sits quietly, half-heartedly studying the menu. She always gets the same thing at IHOP, anyway.

"Can't Buy Me Love" is playing over the restaurant's speakers. Emily unconsciously taps her fingers in rhythm on the table, and Spencer hums along quietly.

When Emily finally has her giant Black Bean Chili & Cheese omelette in front of her, she takes a moment between mouthfuls to blink over at Spencer, frowning a little. "So, do you want to talk about it?"

"About what?" Spencer says around a mouthful of delicious, syrup-soaked pancakes.

"We're in fucking San Diego," Emily says, stabbing a bean with a fork and waving it emphatically.

Spencer shrugs.

Emily eats the bean and rolls her eyes.

* * *

Hanna is laughing at her, again. Spencer is back home, now; Emily made her drive them back after breakfast, a few hours of Emily frowning at the scenery and Spencer humming the Beatles, Emily disappearing into her apartment with one last long, hard look at Spencer through the passenger's side window. And now, Spencer is back home again, and Hanna is laughing at her over the phone.

"I just kind of decided to drive to the beach?" Spencer repeats, wrinkling her nose. Sometimes Hanna finds things funny and she doesn't know why.

"Emily just let you kidnap her for a what, 2-3 hour road trip?" Hanna sounds amused and slightly incredulous. When Spencer thinks about it, she's surprised, too, by Emily's complacency through the whole thing.

"Well," Spencer says, attempting to convey her shrug through her voice, "longer, because I didn't drive straight there, and yeah, I guess she did. It was a really nice night?"

"Huh," says Hanna. 

"What?"

"Nothing," says Hanna. "Well, I don't know-- I guess it was probably good for her to get away for a night, after the wedding and all."

"You think?" Spencer asks, frowning thoughtfully. She doesn't see where Toby's wedding would really fit into Emily's need for vacation, except the part where she might miss her friend while Toby's off on the honeymoon, but Hanna is sometimes smarter about Emily than Spencer is, so.

"Well-- yeah," Hanna decides. "Yeah, probably. Hey, Spencer, I know this is supposed to be like, vacation time, but keep an eye on her for me, okay?"

"Yeah," Spencer says, slowly, after a moment. "Okay, yeah, of course I will."

* * *

It's a strange thing, to Spencer, to think of Emily as someone who needs looking after--she doesn't know why Hanna would think that, and Emily's always been the put-together one, the one whose brain holds things like gas prices and the right dosage of aspirin. Whatever she's been missing--whatever it is Hanna knows and she doesn't--well, it's a good thing to distract Spencer from thinking about the beach, about Toby on his honeymoon, and all that other shit she'd thought she was over.

So she keeps her word to Hanna and sends periodic text messages to Emily, just:

_Emily, Emily, Em my sweet ride misses you_

or

_hey hey baby you can drive my car_

or

_are knock knock jokes in or out???_

and tries to read between the lines of Emily's replies. It's hard to gauge mood and well-being through acronyms and punctuation, especially with Emily ( _o.k._ , occasionally _yes_ or _no_ ), and especially with someone who's hard enough to read in person. Spencer thinks, how are you ever supposed to know if something is wrong, anyway?

So when Spencer gets sick of trying to decipher the emotional content of _you’re a freak_ , she just calls.

"Ten texts in three hours, Spence, do you really miss me that much?" Emily answers in a huff of exasperation. "I mean, like, I let you kidnap me to San Diego, do I need to get a restraining order, because--"

"Are you okay?" Spencer blurts, interrupting. She doesn't do subtle well.

"What?" Emily sounds annoyed, nonplussed. "I'm fine. Like, alive, kicking, all that. Why?"

Spencer shrugs.

"Shrugging doesn't work over the phone," Emily says.

"Apparently it does," Spencer points out, grinning.

"Fuck you," Emily says congenially.

"So you're really okay?" Spencer is pretty sure that even if Emily wasn't okay, she probably wouldn't confide in Spencer over the telephone, but if Hanna asks, she'll at least be able to tell her something.

Emily sighs. "No, Spencer, I'm going slowly insane and have in the last two days taken up conversing with my house plants."

"Um," Spencer says. "When did you get house plants?"

"Maybe I'm imagining them," says Emily, and Spencer can hear her grin, broad and toothy.

"I might have to come over there to make sure," Spencer says, solemn, drumming fingers restlessly on her kitchen counter.

"No, I don't think so-- hey," Emily cuts herself off, the grin in her voice trailing off. She's quiet a moment, almost long enough that Spencer's about to speak up before Emily completes the thought. "Hey, can we--" Emily starts. "Do you want to go to the beach again?"

Spencer blinks. "Um," she says, "I guess that'd be cool? I like the beach."

"That same beach," Emily says. "I want to go there."

Spencer says, "When?"

"Soon," Emily says. "Like, now."

Spencer looks at the clock, checks her watch. Glances at the open inbox on her desktop screen. There's plenty of time for questions in the car, she figures. "Sure, okay," she says.

* * *

Emily is not wearing her three hundred-dollar sneakers, this time; she is wearing flip-flops, which she kicks off to prop both bare feet up on the dashboard, toes scrunching up against the inside of the windshield, leaving smudges on the glass. Spencer would comment, but she's messed up worse things of Emily's in her life. In the whole scheme of things, toeprints are pretty insignificant.

The road looks different this time, wide-open and washed out in the early afternoon, bracing itself for rush hour. Spencer almost gets distracted by it, but she can see Emily out of the corner of her eye, fingers curled into the knees of her jeans, can see the soft slump of her shoulders when she lets out a long breath.

"Do you miss Toby?" Spencer asks, after a while, when she remembers she's supposed to be asking questions.

"Toby texts me almost as much as you do," Emily says. Her voice is bland, unaffected, but Spencer can still feel the warmth behind the words. Spencer has gotten exactly four messages from Toby since the wedding; she's deleted them all without reading or listening.

"Oh," says Spencer.

Emily glances over at her. "You miss Toby," she says. It's not a question, and it's not about the honeymoon, but she doesn't push it further.

"Mmm." Spencer eyes the road lazily, changing lanes for the hell of it. "Why'd you want to go to the beach?"

"I like the beach," says Emily.

* * *

About an hour into the drive, Emily says, "I really wish your radio worked."

Spencer shrugs, watching Emily out of the corner of her eye. "We could have a sing-along," she says, grinning.

Emily raises an eyebrow at her, then looks back out the window. 

Her fingers tap out a rhythm on her knee. "Baby, you can drive my car," she sings softly.

"No, no," Spencer laughs. "A whole new wooooorld--"

"Fuck, no," Emily says, frowning. "Sing ‘Dancing In The Dark’. You haven't sung that in forever."

"Sing it with me," Spencer says.

Emily doesn't sing exactly on-key; she mumbles around the words and fades out sometimes to lean against the window, but Spencer thinks they sound great together anyway. By the time they're skirting around San Diego, they've gone through their fair share of covers and there's the hint of a smile in the corner of Emily's mouth.


	2. Chapter 2

They get to the beach at sunset. The sky is all oranges and pinks and yellows bleeding into each other and Emily doesn't bother finding her flip-flops on the floor, just climbs out and heads barefoot down the sand toward the water.

"Emily, wait up!" Spencer calls after her, locking the car up and following quickly, pausing partway to pull her own shoes and socks off. Emily stops at the edge of the water, almost exactly like Spencer a few night before, where the waves wash up enough to just barely touch her toes. She hooks her thumbs in her pockets, sighs, and looks out across the water.

Spencer sidles up beside her, shoes hanging from one hand, and looks from Emily to the ocean and back to Emily. The smile Emily's mouth had been hinting at earlier is gone, now, her lips curved just barely downward, face placid. Spencer wonders what she's thinking, but can't get past the pink of her lips.

"Did it work for you?" Emily asks, abruptly, but she doesn't look away from the water.

"What?" says Spencer, brow furrowing when she frowns. Emily doesn't make sense, sometimes, but usually she at least doesn't make sense in context; usually Spencer has something to work with, even though she's pretty sure she'll never actually fully understand Emily.

Emily waves a hand vaguely, at the sand and the ocean and life in general. "Whatever you were doing-- last time. When you were thinking, or whatever, did it help?"

"Oh, uh." Spencer shrugs. "I guess so? I didn't really think about it." Emily snorts. Spencer just shrugs again, because she's not sure what else to do.

"Okay, well," Emily says, and strides forward into the waves, the water immediately soaking dark up the legs of her jeans. She hadn't rolled them up, but it doesn't matter, because she wades out much further than Spencer had: up to her waist, pausing for a minute, then out a few more feet so her elbows are resting on the rolling surface of the water.

"Emily, it's getting dark," Spencer calls out to her, partly because she's heard that swimming at sunset is more dangerous--feeding time for the sharks, or something--but mostly because it makes her distinctly uncomfortable to watch Emily out there, like she should swim out and pull her back, or like this whole world is Emily's own private room and Spencer's walked in without knocking.

The sun sinks down under the water, and Emily doesn't move, so neither does Spencer, watching carefully for answers. The sky has gone gray, spreading dark and fading blues; Spencer tries again, quieter, because she knows how things are louder in the dark.

“Em? Emily," she says, taking a few steps into the water. It's just as cold as she remembers.

"Shut up, I'm coming," says Emily. She bobs in the water and in one quick motion ducks under the surface, disappearing for a heart-stopping moment before re-emerging, striking out for shore.

Emily is soaked, clothes clingy, hair plastered over her forehead. She wraps her arms around herself, shivering, and walks past Spencer back up to the car where she tries the door, finds it locked, and leans waiting impatiently for Spencer to shuffle around for her keys.

"Hand me my bag?" Emily asks around chattering teeth. Spencer does, and Emily rummages in it for a towel and dry clothes. She kind of maneuvers around the door to change, but there's not really anyone around but Spencer by now, and it's not like they haven't shared countless rooms anyway. Spencer hops up to sit on the hood of the car while she waits, humming to herself and watching night fall.

"Hey," Emily says finally, her bunched-up towel thumping lightly against the back of Spencer's head. "Starving. IHOP."

* * *

Emily's hair dries in funny angles, pushed up off her forehead and tucked behind her ears. Spencer has to keep resisting the urge to reach over the table and wiggle her fingers through it, muss it around into some semblance of normalcy, with 'normal' here defined as an Emily who doesn't walk into the ocean with her clothes on and leave Spencer staring on the beach. Emily doesn't seem concerned, though, picking steadily through her ham-and-cheese omelette, the set of her jaw firm in a way that makes Spencer think there's something she wants to say but isn't.

Spencer licks her fork clean of syrup. "Emily," she says. Emily blinks up at her, mouth full. "We're in fucking San Diego," Spencer says.

Emily shrugs, swallows. "Yeah, we are," she says, easy and balanced.

"Emily." Spencer frowns at Emily across the table and lets her fork sink through three pancakes at once.

"What," says Emily. She pauses half a second, just long enough to pretend she gave Spencer enough time to answer. "You should let me drive home."

"You--" Spencer starts, stops, and resists the urge to roll her eyes. Sometimes, it is really obvious why Toby and Emily became friends. They're both obnoxiously, stubbornly enigmatic. It's unfair, Spencer thinks, that she always gets pegged as the type to try a person's patience, when she has known those two for so many years. She rubs a bite a pancake around on her plate, sopping up syrup. "You want to drive back tonight?"

"It's not that late," Emily says, using her fork to delicately peel back layers of her omelette, the corners of her mouth tugging down in concentration. She glances up again, briefly. "Are you tired?"

Spencer shrugs. "I just thought, I don't know, I didn't know how long you wanted to stay?"

"Hm," Emily says. She twists a long string of melted cheese around her fork. "I want to drive."

Spencer slides the keys across the table. "Just don't hurt my baby," she says, grinning. Emily rolls her eyes.

Emily looks tense behind the wheel: not high-strung or nervous, but like she's driving away from something instead back somewhere familiar. Spencer curls up on the passenger seat and watches her lazily through half-closed eyes, stomach full and thoughts sleepy.

"You know how to get home from here?" Spencer asks, half muffled in the crook of her elbow.

"I'll find it," Emily says, glancing over with a shrug.

Spencer gives her a smile. "Mmkay," she says, and falls asleep to suburbs and exit signs and Emily's face lit up by streetlights.

* * *

The insistent buzz of her phone against her thigh is what wakes Spencer up, the sharp contrast to the vibration of the road under the car jarring her from sleep to grope blearily, blink half-asleep at the caller ID. It says: Toby :D

Spencer hits ignore.

"Who was that?" Emily asks, glancing over, her hands still wrapped around the wheel in the same way they were when Spencer dozed off. She meets Emily's eyes briefly, raises her eyebrows and shrugs, wondering how long she's been asleep.

"Hm," says Emily, shifts a little, and digs her own buzzing phone out of her pocket to answer. "Hey."

Spencer takes a slow, deep breath, resting her head against the seat and watching Emily. Emily cradles her phone on her shoulder so she doesn't have to drive one-handed, listens carefully. She frowns a little bit, forehead crinkling between her eyebrows, and glances over at Spencer again.

"Toby says to please answer your goddamn phone every once and a while," she says; Spencer sighs and closes her eyes, as if that will stop this conversation from happening. "No, she's right here," Emily says, words clipped. "We're in her car. I don't know, I think somewhere around Salinas. Yeah, sure, here--"

Emily reaches over without preamble and wedges the phone next to Spencer's ear. Spencer opens her eyes again in time to catch the no-nonsense look Emily gives her before turning her eyes back to the road. She sighs and says weakly, "Hello?"

"What the hell," Toby says, flat and angry. "You don't wreck your car and then start ignoring me without at least telling me you're still alive first, what the fuck are you thinking?"

"Sorry," mumbles Spencer. Her voice is still sleepy and scratchy. "Didn't Emily tell you I'm alive?"

If Toby was here, Spencer would be able to see his huff, shoulders tensing, nostrils flaring just a little, mouth going tight. "That's a little different than actually talking to you yourself," he says. "Seriously, Spencer."

"Sorry," Spencer says again. She sounds petulant, she knows, but she can't think of anything else to say right now.

Thousands of miles away, Toby sighs. "Spencer, if you--"

But Spencer holds the phone away, out toward Emily, gives her a look that she hopes translates as _please don't make me do this, please take my side_. Emily rolls her eyes a little, but takes the phone.

"Toby--? Yeah, sorry, she's driving and we hit a twisty spot. Hey, can I call you back later? I think we're going to actually try to figure out where we are now." Emily frowns. Nods. "Okay, yeah. Later." Hangs up and glares at Spencer. "You are so fucked up."

"Where the hell are we?" Spencer thinks she's entitled to ignore that comment, since Emily is the one who's been driving them into the middle of nowhere while Spencer slept.

Emily shrugs. "Like I told Toby. Somewhere near Salinas, I think."

Spencer leans her head back on the seat, facing the window this time, and watches the signs whip by. Interstate 5. Bakersfield. Fresno. And, yeah, Salinas.

"Why?" she asks eventually, glancing back over her shoulder. Emily's eyes are narrowed at the road, knuckles white around the steering wheel. Spencer wonders if she's angry about the Toby thing, or if it's something else that Spencer's missed.

Emily bites her lip and sighs--not audibly, but Spencer can see the minute slump of her shoulders, the way they give under the weight of too much life and not enough years to fit it in. "Shouldn't you know," she says, quietly, then clears her throat. "For different reasons, maybe, but it's the same feeling. You should understand."

"I am going to pretend for now that you just actually made sense and that totally explains why we're in central Cali instead of home," Spencer says, folding her arms over her chest.

"I like central Cali," says Emily. "It has San Francisco. And Yosemite."

"I like LA," Spencer says. "It has my house."

"You didn't like LA a few days ago." Emily glances over quickly, like she's not sure she should have said that but can't bring herself to break the habit of saying what she wants to.

"That's-- different." Spencer bites her tongue.

"It's not," Emily says. She closes her eyes for a moment, then yawns. Spencer looks out the window; the sun is rising, splotches of gold and silver spreading up into the dark sky.

"Emily." Spencer frowns, squints at the road signs. "Let's find somewhere to stop, you know, sleep."

"Mm," Emily says, and Spencer's not sure if that's good or bad, but Emily takes the next exit with a decent lodging sign, her hands relaxing on the wheel. Spencer thinks maybe she was just waiting for someone else to suggest it first.

* * *

They can afford better these days, but sometimes just a Days Inn off the highway is fine, as long as there's a continental breakfast and a Starbucks nearby. This one has both, so Spencer pays for a room while Emily shuffles sleepily around with her bag slung over her shoulder. It's something like six in the morning.

Emily kicks off her flip-flops and claims the bed closest to the door, curling up on top of the comforter and drifting off without a word. Spencer stands between the beds and shifts from foot to foot for about a minute before sitting carefully on the edge of Emily's bed, leaning elbows on knees, staring down at the carpet between her feet. The room smells of cheap cleaning chemicals, so it's almost like they didn't even leave the car.

By her math, Spencer slept probably at least six hours in the car--maybe more. She's tired, but not very sleepy, and the idea of starchy hotel sheets is doing nothing for her; she wanders aimlessly around the room for an hour, sitting down then standing up, peeking into drawers in hopes of hidden treasures. All she finds, though, is the standard-issue Bible in the nightstand, and she closes the drawer again without touching it.

Asleep, the tension that's been lining Emily's face since the beach fades away. Spencer wonders if it's weird, studying your sleeping friend, but she's got nothing else to do; Emily's mouth is curved down in a soft frown, her shoulders rising and falling gently with her breathing.

Emily makes a soft, sleepy noise and rolls over. Spencer watches her for a minute to make sure she's actually asleep, then gets up to delicately tug and pull at the blankets until they're out from under Emily and pull them up over her, tucking them around her shoulders. Emily shifts again, hands curling possessively into the comforter. Spencer smiles a little bit, and lays down next to her, on top of the covers.

She manages a few hours of off-and-on dozing, nothing very restful, before she rolls back to her feet, scribbles a quick note for Emily just in case, and pockets a card key. There's a CVS and a gas station stuck together across the street, so she fills up the car and grabs some necessities: toothbrush, deodorant, the works, a coffee and two scones from the Starbucks on the corner. She's back in the room, brushing her teeth in the bathroom when Emily wakes up, shuffling in sleepy-eyed to let her head fall on Spencer's shoulder.

"Coffee," she says around a yawn. "Time is it?"

"Like noon-ish?" Spencer guesses, tilting her chin away from Emily so she doesn't get toothpaste foam in her hair. Emily still smells like the beach, sand and saltwater. Spencer brushes over her teeth once more and rinses the brush off in the sink.

Emily yawns again and stretches. "Ugh, I need a shower."

* * *

Even after her shower Emily is still bleary, blinking tiredly, pushing irritated fingers through her wet hair to get it somewhere near decent. Spencer hands over her comb and a scone and suggests a trip to Starbucks, if Emily wants, she'll buy. Emily would never argue with this.

So now they're sitting next to each other, sunk into big purple armchairs in the corner of the cafe. Spencer has her second coffee of the day, and Emily is sipping her something-something latte that Spencer can never remember how to order. She knows it's got four shots of espresso in it, though, and it makes Emily a morning person--even if their morning, right now, is two in the afternoon.

"Mmm," Emily says, eyes closed in momentary coffee-induced bliss.

Spencer stirs her drink with a straw, studying her intently. Earlier she'd got a text from Hanna asking if she kidnapped Emily again, and a few from Aria, and her mom, just checking in. She told them all that she and Emily were on a soul-seeking journey up the Pacific coast; her mom said that sounded excellent and Aria said to please not kill each other. Toby hasn't called back. Spencer isn't sure how she feels about that.

"Hey," says Emily, reaching over to stick half her butter croissant under Spencer's nose.

Spencer grins and bites into the bread. "Thank you."

Emily shrugs. "You bought it." She goes back to sipping her latte, her brows drawn slightly together in thought. Spencer has an urge to reach over and smooth the crease out with her fingertips; instead, she wraps both hands around her cup, the drink warm against her palms.

"So," she says eventually, because it's mid-afternoon and Emily's had time to wake up now, or because she's antsy and her mind's been working twice as hard as her body lately, all questions and no answers, and maybe making plans will map out how they got here in the first place, "we have the room through tonight, if you wanna stay up here another night.”

Emily looks over at her, like she's surprised by the suggestion. "Yeah," she says slowly, but then, "no. Let's-- I don't know." She frowns.

"You have no idea where you're going," Spencer says, not accusatory, just observing.

Emily sets her latte down. "What, you do?" Spencer can't tell if she wants a challenge or an answer, so she looks down at her coffee and shrugs.

"Well, then," Emily says, "let's keep going."

* * *

"I told my mom we're on a soul-seeking journey up the Pacific coast," Spencer says when they're just skirting around the edges of San Francisco. She's letting Emily drive again, and has her seat reclined, feet up on the dashboard. Emily seems less tense behind the wheel, today, better-rested, more content to just follow the road instead of race against time.

Emily doesn't look over at her, but shrugs a little. "I guess that's accurate."

Spencer tilts her head, grinning a little. "What are you looking for, Emily Fields?”

"Somewhere to dump your body where no one will find it," Emily says, deliberate and nonchalant.

"You know," Spencer says, "it might help to talk about it."

"Don't be hypocritical," Emily says shortly, mouth twisting into something between a frown and a grimace. Her eyes narrow a little, defensive, her fingers tightening on the steering wheel.

Spencer, usually, tries not to provoke Emily when she's moody. She's learned over the years that it's probably not worth it to deal with the resulting glares and grudge unless she's really starved for entertainment. But right now, they're a day's drive from home with no warning or explanation, in Spencer's new-old car with no soundtrack except each other, and Spencer is bad with quiet.

"I'm just trying to help," she says. "Emily. You know, this is my car."

"Then don't let me drive next time," Emily says through gritted teeth, checking her blind spot before jerking over into the next lane.

"Emily." Spencer would reach over and put a hand on her shoulder, take her hand, or something, but she doesn't need another car crash. "You know, if you could just tell me what's wrong, maybe--"

"Listen, okay, I don't try to console you through your angst over Toby, so let me deal alone, too, okay?" Emily snaps, her eyes darting from Spencer to the roadsigns and back to the highway.

"Fuck you," Spencer snaps right back. "I'm trying to help, here, I'm trying to be your goddamn friend, I'm letting you drive my new fucking car halfway up the coast--"

"At least I don't crash it into telephone poles," Emily interrupts, hitting the gas to cut across two lanes and onto an exit ramp.

"Have you even thought for a second that maybe I would like to fucking talk about it?" Spencer's voice cracks a little at the end with the realization that, despite all the long hours in the car trying to figure out Emily, there is still a weight in the pit of her stomach that is almost too heavy to carry.

Emily doesn't answer right away. She swings the car back into civilization, takes a few deft turns and skids into a shopping center parking lot. She takes a quick look around--Macy's, JC Penney, Starbucks--then turns to Spencer, intense and intent.

"Okay," she says. "Talk."

Spencer stares. "I--" she starts, sputtering. She has no idea where to start. "You-- I, I just."

Emily gives her a withering look. "I see. You can go home now, if you really want to," she says, and in a swift movement is out of the car and slamming the door behind her.

Spencer scrambles out to call after her. "Where the hell are you going?"

Emily shrugs and waves without turning around.

* * *

The next two hours of Spencer's life go like this:

Emily disappears into the mall and Spencer kicks one of her tires hard in frustration, curses loudly and makes sure her foot is not broken.

Spencer tries twice to call Emily, then leaves her a text message that says _im gonna leave you here, dickhead_ and gives up.

Spencer gets a venti-sized caramel frappuccino and sits in one of the squashy chairs in Starbucks fuming, sulking, and finally thinking.

Spencer finishes her frappuccino and calls Toby.

“Caleb says you and Emily are on a soul-seeking journey up the Pacific Coast," Toby says. "How are you still alive?"

Spencer clears her throat a little, uncomfortable. "Uh, I might've just lost Emily in a mall in San Francisco."

"How the fuck do you lose Emily?" Toby asks, but he sounds more exasperated and amused than actually annoyed, so Spencer figures she picked a good time to call.

"She just wandered off," Spencer says, because it's true. "I just wanted to tell you that I'm not still in love with you."

"I know that," says Toby. "You should probably find her."

"Well, _I_ didn't know, and I'll try, but she's an elusive motherfucker." Spencer slurps at the remains of her frappuccino. "I just never thought I'd love anyone as much as I loved you, and that was pretty depressing, but, you know what, I totally can. And will."

"I'm very happy for you," Toby says. "Please find Emily now."

Spencer wanders the mall aimlessly for a while, eyes peeled for Emily and a little on-edge for people she knows, since she's very aware of how worn down and strung out she looks after a few days in the car. But, she's got her hoodie pulled up and her sunglasses on, and even though she's tired she feels a little bit invincible.

There's no sign of Emily, but there is an awesome sale at Macy's, and Spencer gets herself a few new tops. Then she calls Hanna.

"I cannot believe you lost Emily," is how Hanna answers the phone, sounding suspiciously like she's holding back laughter.

"Look, okay, she wandered off on her own, and she was being a dick, so," Spencer says, looping her Journeys bag around her wrist and rolling her eyes as if Hanna can see it.

"Yeah, well, that's the way you and Emily are together, you'd think you'd be used to it by now," Hanna says. "Don't leave her there, okay?"

"Well, yeah, but I have to find her first." Spencer thinks that Hanna doesn't need to know that she briefly considering driving off without Emily. That had been before her frappuccino-aided revelation, though; now, she's just determined and a little worried. Hanna ticks off a few places to look that Spencer hasn't thought of and by the time it's getting dark outside, Spencer feels like she's searched the whole shopping center twice over.

Emily, it turns out, is sitting on the trunk of the Camry, feet perched on the bumper and chin propped up on elbows. Spencer can tell it's her from across the parking lot, from the soft, sad slump of her shoulders and her silhouette against the sunset. "Emily!" she calls out once she's close enough. "Seriously, what the fuck?"

Emily lifts her head to blink at her, unsurprised. "I forgot for a minute where we parked," she says; Spencer is taken aback by the rawness of her voice. "I thought you'd actually left me here."

"I wouldn't do that." Spencer would be offended by the thought if Emily didn't look three seconds away from falling apart.

"Yeah," says Emily, unconvincingly. She takes a slow, shuddery breath and presses the heels of her hands into her eyes.

"Hey," says Spencer, "hey," and reaches out to wrap arms around her; Emily slides easily off the car to crumple against her, clutching at Spencer's shoulders and pressing her face into Spencer's neck. Spencer can feel Emily's eyelashes against her skin when she tries to blink back tears.

"Hey," she says again, sinking fingers into Emily's hair, other arm tight around her waist. Emily's hair is warm against her cheek, and for a second Spencer almost feels like a teenager again. "Emily."

"What," Emily says, her voice cracking on the word.

"Let's go to the beach," Spencer whispers.

* * *

The beach they find outside of San Francisco isn't like their picturesque surf beach from further south. It's all high cliffs and jagged rocks, crashing waves and breathtaking drops, and it's a little bit terrifying, Spencer thinks, but Emily's got tight hold of her hand and strides purposefully out to the very edge.

"I like this one better than the other one," she decides, raising her voice over the sound of the waves. Spencer nods, tightening her grip on Emily's hand and toeing the edge of the cliff, nudging a rock over the edge and watching it tumble into the darkness, into the water below.

Emily says, "I asked Paige to marry me."

Spencer jerks her head up to stare. "What, when?"

“Six months ago," Emily says, shrugging. "The same day she broke up with me. She said, I have to talk to you, and I said, no, me first." She lets out a long, slow breath. "How emo does it make you to like a place for its suicide potential, even if you'd never actually jump?"

"Better than crashing your car into a telephone pole," Spencer says softly, dropping her eyes from Emily to watch the white crests of waves crashing against the cliff base.

Emily cracks a smile. "Nah, the car thing is way more rock and roll."

Spencer says, "I told Toby I'm not in love with him anymore."

"But--" Emily turns to look at her.

"I'm not," Spencer says, firm and simple, like it's the easiest conclusion she's ever reached. After everything, now, it kind of seems like it should have been.

Emily is quiet for a long time. "That's good," she says eventually, quietly. 

Spencer shifts over to drape arms around Emily's shoulders, pull her closer and press her nose into Emily's hair. She grins, suddenly, and tucks the expression behind Emily's ear, whispering. "I decided I'm going to fall in love again, and it's going to be even more beautiful. It's going to be fucking epic."

There's a gust of wind, sharp and salty, curling around them like the waves on the rocks. Emily shivers, turns her head and closes her eyes against Spencer's cheek. "Epic... and probably a trainwreck," she says, wry. "You're a disaster, Spence.”

Spencer grins wider, squeezing Emily to her. "Would change everything for happy ever after, caught in the in between of beautiful disaster," she sings, nudging Emily's head with her nose.

Emily opens her eyes; it's dark and Spencer can't really tell, buts she thinks Emily might be smiling just a little bit. "But she just needs someone to take her home," she finishes, more of a murmur than a song.

* * *

Spencer is driving; they haven't discussed it, but she figures it's an unspoken decision that they're heading back to LA, now; they've done all they can here. Emily, curled up in the passenger seat, rolls her window halfway down so they still have the wind for a soundtrack. It blows Emily's hair in a million crazy directions and makes Spencer kind of grin to herself, tapping out the rhythm of the Beatles in her head on the steering wheel.

"What is it with that song lately?" Emily asks, her fingers instinctively drumming along against her thigh.

Spencer shrugs. "Blame Aria. Asked a girl what she wanted to be--"

"No, no, don't," Emily tries not to grin, hitting Spencer on the shoulder. She's been watching Spencer more than the scenery, this drive, her eyes fickle between soft and calculating. Spencer pretends she hasn't noticed, because then Emily would stop. She gives Emily a big smile and Emily rolls her eyes, digging her phone from her pocket to check compulsively. “Aria says she's proud of you for being alive, and I better be in one piece or she will make grr-faces at you."

“Aria is biased and a heathen," Spencer says, pulling a face she hopes conveys the deep wound to her soul.

Emily looks smug. "Yes, she is."

Spencer pouts, then sobers, runs a hand through her hair and looks over at Emily. "Are you still in love with her?"

Emily blinks, the only indication of her surprise at the question. She shakes her head, glancing off toward the road.

"Were you, then?" Spencer asks, after a moment.

Emily shifts around in her seat to prop her feet up on the dashboard, squashing her toes against the inside of the windshield. "I like to think I was. It's hard to remember what being in love is like when you're not."

"There's a big difference," Spencer says, "between loving and being in love."

"That sounds like something Toby would say," Emily says, picking at a hole in the knee of her jeans that Spencer doesn't remember being there when they first left.

She shrugs. "It is something Toby said."

Emily smiles a little, to herself, but Spencer sneaks a peak anyway.

* * *

Spencer's house is still too empty.

Even after all of that, the soul-seeking and the epiphanies and revelations, it is still too quiet and too big. She has been home two days and both of those have been spent with the television up loud on the Home Shopping Network so she can hear it while she's out in her backyard, poking through the mess of flowers and vegetables she plants but is never around to tend. It's hot out; no ocean breeze can reach this far. Spencer itches to take her car out again, drive forever with the windows down, but she's afraid she'll end up searching for something she really can't find, this time.

The afternoon of the third day, when Spencer's standing between a tomato plant and bed of petunias and listening to a disembodied voice try to sell her a set of panda-inspired salt and pepper shakers, Emily calls.

“Apparently your mom told my mom about our trip,” she says in a tone that Spencer thinks might actually be amused. “Now she thinks we were on a bender."

"Awesome," Spencer says, finding herself grinning suddenly. "I love getting wasted when I don’t know about it. Get to skip the hangover portion entirely"

"Hey, Emily?" she says, leaning her head against the wall and cradling the phone on her shoulder.

"No, I don't want to drive your car," Emily says.

Spencer laughs. "But baby, I love yooou," she croons. Emily snorts. "No," Spencer says, "I was just gonna ask if you'd wanna come over? There is a gaping hole in my life without you by my side."

Emily is quiet for an extra beat, but, "Okay, sure."

She is over in half an hour wearing her jeans with the hole in the knee and the three hundred-dollar sneakers. Emily scoops her into a hug and she makes a half-hearted noise of protest, but winds her arms tight around Emily's neck anyway. Her body is warm and familiar against Spencer's and Spencer grins into Emily's hair, singing in a low voice, "Asked a girl what she wanted to be and she said, baby, can't you see--"

Emily actually laughs, bopping a fist lightly on Spencer's head. "Oh god, shut the hell up." But she doesn't let go, so Spencer doesn't either.

"Fine," she says, pressing her nose next to Emily's ear. "You pick a song."

"Hmmm," Emily hums, the sound vibrating low against Spencer's skin, right down to her heart. She doesn't sing, but she closes her eyes and whispers, "Please, please, please, let me, let me, let me."

"Get what I want this time," Spencer finishes softly.

"Mmhmm," says Emily.

Spencer tilts her head, carefully, just in case she's wrong, so that when she murmurs the words are right next to the corner of Emily's mouth. "Epic," she says. "Fucking epic, Emily."

"Trainwreck," Emily murmurs back, her lips curling up into a grin. Then her hands are in Spencer's hair, and Emily kisses her right on the mouth like it's the easiest conclusion she's ever come to. Maybe it is.


End file.
